Maps of Music

Summer of '42 (1972)

Where the lyrics of Summer of '42 take you, and where it was really made.

Summer of '42 was arranged by four different people, yet it stayed on the Billboard chart for only four weeks, peaking at No. 182.

Place unknown

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Summer of '42: studio album by Tony Bennett
Released 12 January 1972 by Columbia Records
Arranged by Torrie Zito, Robert Farnon, Marion Evans and Frank De Vol
Eleven tracks; Tony Bennett is credited as vocalist
Track listing totals about 32 minutes 29 seconds
The album opens with the Theme from Summer of '42 (The Summer Knows), written by Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman

Songs come from several writers, including John Barry and Don Black (Walkabout), Stephen Sondheim (Losing My Mind) and Dinah Washington with Walter Merrick (Somewhere Along the Line)
Gilbert Bécaud and Norman Gimbel wrote It Was Me
James Moody wrote Coffee Break
Sacha Distel and R. I. Allen wrote More and More
Robert Farnon wrote Irena, and he also worked as an arranger on the album
My Inamorata is credited to John Williams and Johnny Mercer
The Shining Sea is credited to Johnny Mandel and Peggy Lee
Several arrangers worked on one album, so the credits list more than one name for the arrangements
Bennett's vocal is the only performance credit listed on the album

1	Theme From Summer of ’42 (The Summer Knows)	3:34
2	Walkabout	2:38
3	It Was Me	3:04
4	I’m Losing My Mind	2:50
5	Till	2:58
6	Somewhere Along the Line	3:00
7	Coffee Break	2:10
8	More and More	3:04
9	Irena	2:44
10	My Inamorata	3:39
11	The Shining Sea	2:48

Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on August 3, 1926, in Long Island City, Queens, New York City.
Grew up in poverty after his father, a grocer, became unable to work and died when Tony was ten.
Sang for money from age 13 as a singing waiter in Italian restaurants in Queens.
Attended New York's School of Industrial Art but dropped out at 16 to help support his family.

Drafted into the U.S. Army in November 1944 and fought as an infantryman in the final stages of World War II.
Stayed in Germany with the occupying force and sang with an Army Special Services band under the name Joe Bari.

Studied bel canto at the American Theatre Wing on the GI Bill; Pearl Bailey and Bob Hope helped launch him, and Hope shortened his name to Tony Bennett.
Signed with Columbia Records in 1950; first number-one hit "Because of You" in 1951.
Shifted toward jazz singing in the late 1950s; "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" (1962) became his signature song.
Declined commercially during the rock era and struggled with addiction and debt until a comeback in the late 1980s, managed by his son Danny.
The 1994 MTV Unplugged album won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Collaborated with Lady Gaga from Cheek to Cheek (2014) through Love for Sale (2021).
Won 20 Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, and sold more than 50 million records worldwide.
Received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2005 and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Co-founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens with Susan Crow.

Billboard: wrote that Bennett came up with a winner in a package of exceptional performances of some of the day's best material
Record World: said the balance of the package was nicely old-fashioned in its simplicity, and that Bennett sounded as good as he always does
Record World: called the album soothing
Variety: said Bennett was in fine voice, with dramatic intensity on songs such as the theme, Walkabout, I'm Losing My Mind, Somewhere Along the Line, My Inamorata and The Shining Sea
Record Mirror: said the album underlines the fervour with which Bennett drives worthwhile lyrics
Record Mirror: praised the phrasing as superb and the interpretation as near-classic

Columbia Records released the album on 12 January 1972.
On 8 November 2011, Sony Music Distribution put the CD into the box set The Complete Collection.
Robert Farnon is credited both as the writer of Irena and as one of the album's arrangers.
Somewhere Along the Line is credited to Dinah Washington and Walter Merrick.
The album's arrangers were four different people, so no single arranger is credited across the whole record.